Simon Morden - Theories of Flight

Petrovitch slowed and let the others catch up. Miyamoto was working hard, enough to make him reluctant to speak—and Petrovitch was glad for that, since he was getting more than enough grief off the AI. Lucy looked ready to drop, though. She was pale, shaky, and it looked like it hurt every time she tried to breathe.

Perhaps they could walk the next kilometer as it was entirely underground.

“We go in here,” he started to say, but his words were lost in the shrill whistle of artillery.

The shells came from the south, howled overhead and exploded with a full-throated roar a few streets away. Debris lifted into the air, and pulverized dust began to drift in grubby clouds.

[EDF tanks in Primrose Hill. They seem confident that there are no civilians left in the target area.]

A second volley of gunfire blossomed in red and black down the Finchley Road. Glass shattered and walls fell, and the ground shook. Slates and tiles span away, and started to hit the railway track like spinning plates, exploding as they crashed down. The sound of the shells leaving the guns was a distant and belated afterthought.

“Run.”

Petrovitch reached forward and grabbed Lucy’s hand, and he had to drag her, her exhausted legs unable to respond.

The barrage continued, getting closer, but they were safe in the tunnel’s mouth and picking their way further in. Gritty soot rained down on their heads with every concussion, and the air itself stiffened with every explosion.

Petrovitch fumbled in his pocket for the rat, his other arm fighting the losing battle to keep the schoolgirl upright. He ended up dumping her on her backside and leaning her against his legs while he flipped the case open and dialed the screen’s brightness up to maximom.

The pearl light illuminated the peaky whiteness of Lucy’s face, the oily darkness of the Victorian brickwork, and his own dusty glasses. Miyamoto stood watching the detritus accumulate across the tracks outside, and then the station took a direct hit.

The blast wave made them all duck down and cover their heads, and the roil of smoke that followed had its own distinctive taste. It smelled of war.

Petrovitch held the rat up, jerked Lucy to her feet and pushed her further in. The tunnel entrance was a hazy dot when they stopped again.

“We should be all right here,” he said.

Miyamoto’s eyes blinked in the soft glow. “And if the tunnel collapses?”

“We’re screwed. But it stood up to the Luftwaffe: a few tank rounds aren’t going to make a difference.” Petrovitch sat down next to Lucy. “You okay?”

She had scrunched her body up and was shivering uncontrollably. “Ohgodohgodohgod,” she was whispering, while her fingers writhed like dirty worms.

“Yeah, you’ll get used to it.” She’d lost her water bottle, and Petrovitch pressed his on her. “You might think that you were safer where you were, but that’s just an illusion. We’re doing fine. You’re doing fine. Better than I expected, anyway.”

She said something that he couldn’t quite catch.

“Say again?” He leaned in close.

“N-not bad f-for a girl.” She looked out at him under her fringe.

“Not bad at all.” He patted her shoulder awkwardly, not knowing what else to say. He felt he ought to try. “I will get you out of this: I promise.”

Lucy fixed him with her wide eyes that glowed in the light of the rat’s screen. “Y-you’re just saying that.” Her whole body spasmed, and she clutched her knees tighter.

“I’ve done this before. I didn’t lose anyone then. I don’t intend to now.”

She nodded. “But… outside.”

“Yeah. We’ll have to do something about that. The Outies we can deal with, but a stray artillery round will really ruin our day.”

Miyamoto reached over his back and drew his sword with a singing ring. “The European Defense Force are targeting Outie concentrations, but I do not believe that it will stop the inevitable loss of the northern Metrozone.”

Petrovitch tapped his rat. He’d lost the satellite connection—too much soil and rock between him and the open sky. “It’s not inevitable. Not anymore.”

“Explain.”

“The Outie advance relied on the wave of refugees ahead of it overwhelming the defenders’ capacity to cope. As long as they kept right up to the heels of the last fleeing Metrozoner, they were going to win. But they’ve fallen behind. They’ve underestimated just how fast a population can shift when the govno hits the fan. If the EDF can get enough troops on the ground to hold a line, set up enough pinch-points to funnel the Outies into the killing grounds, then not waver even when they’re down to their last bullet…” Petrovitch cocked his ear to the steady crump of explosions echoing down the tunnel. “I could win it.”

“Your capacity for self-aggrandisement never fails to astound me.” Miyamoto snorted. “You are not a god. You are not a general. You are a weak, venal, delusional street child who never grew up.”

Petrovitch played his tongue across his teeth for the few moments it took his anger to rise and then subside. “I don’t see anyone else around here who’s got a bunch of equations named after them.” He pretended to search the shadows for the ghosts of Schrödinger, Fermi and Heisenberg. “And I’m the only one who bought a yebani torch! So why don’t you just watch and learn?”

He levered himself to his feet, and crooked his hand under Lucy’s armpit. She looked up at him.

“Now?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” He pulled her up and held on while she steadied herself.

“I’m ready,” she said, though her legs could barely support her. The darkness of the tunnel bore down on her, but she struggled and stood tall. “Definitely ready.”

They walked down the center of the two tracks, on the rise of ballast that rattled and clattered when they kicked it, making sharp distinct sounds compared with the dull bass boom that reverberated around them. Without his map, Petrovitch was guessing they were halfway, and that they really ought to be able to see the far end sometime soon.

They didn’t: he couldn’t remember there being a curve that might block their view, and he held the little screen further out to one side, so as not to ruin his night sight.

There were lights ahead. Several, but none of them were shards of daylight.

“Chyort.” He snapped the rat shut and stayed perfectly still. Lucy, dogging his heels, stumbled into his outstretched arm and gave a little squeak of fear.

He watched and listened; he didn’t have a heartbeat to sound in his ears. Miyamoto seemed to have vanished, but he could hear the girl’s panting breaths off to his left. Above those slight vibrations, above the sub-sonic trembling of exploding shells, was a soft susurration of voices. The lights were still, though occasionally one seemed to flicker, as if a body occluded it.

Lucy was still in contact with his arm. He guessed at where her hand would be and, as silently as he could, walked her to the wall. He put her hand on it, and whispered into her hair, “Stay still.”

He left her there, and walked on, his own fingertips trailing the damp, crumbling tunnel side. He slipped the rat into a pocket, and filled that hand with his gun.

The lights grew and brightened. He could make out shape and form, and he frowned. There was a train in the tunnel, and there were people on that train. Petrovitch rode his luck, and loped up to the rear buffers.

It was a commuter train, stalled due to the power cut. The passengers ought to be long gone, though. The weak blue-white light just about made it through the oily dusty patina of the windows of the carriages, but no further. He pressed his ear to the metalwork. The buzzing, rumbling voices inside were indistinct, and he gained nothing but another smear of dirt.